


The Three-Body Problem

by psiten



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: A Heterodyne Adventure, Crack, Fluff, Mad Science, Mathematicians, Multi, References to Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8887864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten
Summary: There's no such thing as being woefully unprepared to teach a class when you're a spark! Or actually, maybe there is.

  "We forgot the first rule of being a long-lived super-genius," Tarvek growled, and they all recited the words together.
  "Always get a minion to read the mail first!"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maybetwice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/gifts).



     The tunnels dug through the stone under Brilliankromb gave way to metal train tracks glinting in the light of Agatha's torch. "And I think we take a right here?" she asked her two men, who were bickering behind her over who got to hold the map. It certainly would've been easier to find the local University going overground, but better to arrive a little late and a little confused than on time but perforated by Tarvek's cousin's latest defenses systems. Agatha wasn't even sure which cousin they were sneaking past, or whether they'd be shooting at her, Tarvek, or Gil, but in the end it didn't matter. Anybody who targeted one of them would be firing at all three.

     Both men of course, called back, "I think it's left," but they were wrong.

     Agatha pointed at the paper pasted to the wall that said, "Visiting Professors This Way," with an arrow pointing right. "Are you sure you don't have the map upside down? That last turn was pretty sharp. Anyway, this looks like the direction they want us to go."

     Rolling his eyes, Tarvek folded up the map. "You'd think I'd be used to skulking around in caves after all this time. Oh, hey, is this tunnel tiled? And look at the train tracks... I hope there won't be a train coming while we're down here."

     "Relax," Gil scoffed. "This is the Brilliankromb particle accelerator. They use the tracks to attach guides for magnetized piping and optic lenses, not run trains. We're safe."

     And safe they were when they finally reached the ladder up to a manhole where a blond lady wearing an unmistakeable Dean's hat was waiting with a clipboard. "Oh, thank goodness! You're here! We were starting to worry we might have to send the dogs out after you, and goodness knows what we would've done if the dogs found one of the Tunnel Monks instead of the three of you. But here you are..."

     "Here we are!" Agatha answered. "Ready to shape the minds of tomorrow! I'm Agatha Heterodyne, and this is--"

     "Oh goodness, I know you three! I've seen all the plays!" She helped them out one at a time, naming them in turn. "Science's own femme fatale, Agatha Heterodyne, the ferocious Gilgamesh Wulfenbach -- and thank you so much for avoiding the full moon, since our modest establishment isn't equipped for werewolf transformations..." (Something none of them bothered explaining wasn't true, since the ship on that myth had well and truly sailed.) "... and the brooding anti-hero genius, Tarvek Sturmvoraus. I do hope you didn't run into any trouble finding your way here?"

     "Some trouble," Tarvek assured her, "But no armies. Really, that's all we can ask for."

     "Excellent!"

     Once Agatha's eyes adjusted to the brighter lights, she saw that it was quite a modest building, with plaster walls and slate floors, and not nearly as loud or... well... _explosive_ as most of the universities she'd been in during her life. Where were they hiding the clanks? The chemical laboratories? The biological engineering labs? Were these walls even reinforced with steel to prevent runaway experiments from tearing through them? They didn't look like it.

     "Right this way," the University Dean told them. Agatha couldn't quite remember her name from the introduction letters. Thomas? Thompson? Oh, well. Surely Gil or Tarvek would remember who she was if that turned out to be important. They were both pretty devious, which went hand in hand with being good at remembering names. "You know, Professor Feynstrom has been simply giddy about getting all three of you in to do a guest lecture! Obviously, our little school is proud to host any one of you, let alone the Lady Heterodyne, Baron-Presumptive Wulfenbach, and Tarvek Sturmvoraus together!"

     Tarvek scowled at the floor and scuffed his toes in the cutest way. "Not acknowledging _everybody's_ titles, I see..."

     "Hush, dear," Agatha murmured, ruffling his hair.

     True, it was standard practice these days to call whichever Sturmvoraus was standing closest to you The Storm King, but they couldn't count on that when one of Tarvek's cousins was nominally in power in this city - not that they could ever acknowledge that power as being real. Admitting any power that wasn't nominal was usually a bad idea, since Gil still got allergies when people who weren't him were described as being "in power" despite all the Hubris Pollen being eradicated from the Castle. Also, sometimes he came down with telepathy, so she didn't even want to think about someone else's power being real. And yet, facts were facts. They'd had to sneak in through the particle collider tunnels just to keep Tarvek from getting hunted by his cousin's Smoke Knights before they got to the protected sanctuary of the Brilliankromb University, and if the local Sturmvoraus's spies (assumed to be present everywhere) told their mistress about someone else getting called The Storm King, she would be _pissed_. None of them could guarantee that the University would be respected as neutral ground when you had a Sturmvoraus family squabble on the table.

     Off to her other side, Gil cleared his throat with that wounded-puppy pout she could never resist, so she ruffled his hair, too.

     "You're both so high-maintenance! How do I put up with you?!" she asked, squishing a duplicitous mad scientist against each of her sides.

     "Because cowering minions are a dime a dozen," Gil reminded her.

     "And also," Tarvek added, "you haven't yet been able to create a machine that can duplicate or exceed our combined sexual prowess."

     "Yet!" Agatha promised them both.

     Oh, would that be a beautiful day! Not because she'd dispose of the gentlemen whom the Castle still insisted on calling her harem, since she was sure they'd up their game after being outperformed by a machine (also, she _was_ fond of them), but because she couldn't _wait_ to turn the machines in question loose on _them_ for proper human experimentation. Her own observational objectivity would be critical for ensuring optimal results!

     The Dean gave a little cough, at which point all three sparks realized they were standing still in front of a classroom, just the same as every other classroom in the hallway with its quaint little oak door in the plaster walls, marked with a brass number above the lintel. The only thing that set this apart from any other door is that this was where the Dean was trying to draw their attention to a diminutive bald man with glasses.

     "May I present Professor Feynstrom, the chair of our Theoretical Mathematics Department."

     "Theoretical Mathematics?" Gil asked. "There must be some mistake. We're all primarily experts in Engineering! Well, and chemicals. One can hardly forget those."

     Tarvek scoffed, "Speak for yourself! I have a perfectly respectable Masters in Political Science, and a Doctorate in Early Italian Poetry!"

     Agatha and Gil both blinked at him. First she'd heard of it. "Really? When did you get that?"

     "Remember that week I was stuck in Florence with the flu?"

     They nodded. It was hard to forget. She and Gil had had to fight off a horde of Revenants in Vienna with little more than a pack of matches and the contents of an abandoned clock factory because Tarvek's convoy got derailed.

     "Apparently I wrote and defended a dissertation in my sleep. I read it when I got better, and I'm glad to say, I was brilliant."

     Everyone present shrugged. Stranger things had happened. The point stood that their work was anything _but_ theoretical.

     Professor Feynstrom patted some sweat off his pate with a violently plaid handkerchief. "Oh goodness! I hope that doesn't mean you'll be cancelling the presentation! I... I mean, I did mention the subject of the class in my letter, I hope?"

     Agatha turned to her partners in crime. "I remember seeing that we'd been asked to guest lecture. I was sure that one of you had checked the topic."

     "I just remember the line where we were being asked here as experts in the field," Gil said, frowning. "I assumed it was something we actually were experts in, since... you know... We're experts in quite a bit. I never expected to be asked about something we _don't_ know."

     "We forgot the first rule of being a long-lived super-genius," Tarvek growled, and they all recited the words together.

     "Always get a minion to read the mail first!"

     In the classroom doorway, the Professor was getting more panicked by the second. "But I don't understand! When I was lamenting my difficulties with my curriculum, Dr. Hamburg, from Paris, assured me himself that you three were among the world's top experts on the Three-Body Problem! He was quite clear! Usually my students all skip this class, but--" He got down on his knees, crying. Agatha had been wondering how long that would take, since he was clearly the minion type. "Please, at least try! My students are so excited to learn from actual sparks!"

     Agatha shrugged at the men on either side of her. "There's no harm in trying. We've got a few minutes before the class starts to brush up on the material."

     "I agree," said Tarvek. "Between us, we've conquered at least half the world. How hard can one math problem be?"

     "You mean _I've_ conquered half the world," Gil corrected him. "Agatha gets credit for conquering Mechanicsburg, twice, since that's a real challenge, but what have you brought to this world conquering party?"

     Tarvek shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that. You still think you're in charge in most of the places I control, and I want to keep it that way."

     Slamming a fist into his forehead, Gil groaned, "How many times to I have to explain, I _eradicated_ that infestation of Hubris blossoms and inoculated myself against the remaining pollen! I won't sneeze if you lay claim to a city or two!"

     "No, I mean you really do still think you run those towns -- well, counties, really -- and I'm not telling you about them," Tarvek laughed. "I want to see how long it takes you to figure it out. Also, Siberia is completely under my control."

     Gil let loose a thunderous sneeze, protesting as he pulled out his hanky that it was just dust in the air. "Damn math departments and their chalk dust!"

     "Our chalk is certified dustless..." Feynstrom protested. "But my Lady! Good sirs!"

     Agatha pulled each of her men in by the shoulders, making them look at the Professor. "We're here. We'll do it. Now, point us at the books."

     After all, trying to back out now would mean either claiming that they weren't experts in something that someone said they were experts on (unacceptable), or explaining that Dr. Hamburg had been joking about the time he walked in on the three of them in the throes of passion in a Paris stellar observatory, and the "three-body problem" they were indeed expert in solving had nothing whatsoever to do with heavenly bodies or their gravities (although Gil and Tarvek's bodies were both, in their own ways, stellar). Doing a quick read-through on a math problem would be infinitely simpler, she was certain.


	2. Chapter 2

     Five minutes later, the three of them were crowded around a pile of books with their jaws hanging slack. Gil was the first to sputter, "How are we supposed to give a lecture on a math problem that definitely doesn't have one single solution, and most cases are utterly unpredictable?!"

     "Easy," Tarvek answered. "We stand up, say a lot of big words, draw a few diagrams, then get Feynstrom to put up equations for the special cases that do have solutions. For homework, we instruct the students to derive the special cases. Problem solved! I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thrived in classes like that."

     "Ooh, and we can do one of those, 'Let's see who did the reading,' exercises to get the main points for discussion on the board," Agatha added.

     Gil turned his eyes to the ceiling, clearly on the verge of tears. "This is awful. We're turning into Professor Hardebon!"

     Well, that was true. Professor "How am I supposed to teach you if you don't do the reading" Hardebon was famous across several continents, and not in the good way. After he got tenure, he'd just gotten lazy! But that didn't change the fact that they had to do _something_.

     "What we've got to do is play to our strengths," she murmured, looking over the diagrams. Then, the three of them looked up and shared a _moment of clarity_ , complete with instantaneous, complete, and utter understanding of what they were about to do. Agatha yelled over her shoulder, "Madam Dean! Professor Feynstrom! We have a list of materials we'll need!"

     Gil started dividing the rest of the tasks, since class was starting in two minutes. "Obviously, Tarvek, you're the best at flim-flamming--"

     "Hey!"

     "Well, you are."

     "I suppose you are _abysmal_ at anything other than grandstanding, and Agatha's far too honest," Tarvek admitted.

     Shoving the pile of books and some notepaper at him, Gil picked up with, "So you go over the lesson plan and trick the students into getting the rudiments on the board. I'll sketch the basic idea of the circuitry schematics so--"

     The Dean and the Professor came running in, and Agatha yelled, "Electromagnetic generator! Two magnetized dishes with a one-meter diameter! Five iron spheres the size of a large egg! Two switches, and about ten meters of 12-gauge copper wiring, oh, and if you have any transparent shatter-proof shields, that's probably a good idea!"

     "For what?!" squeaked Professor Feynstrom.

     "So the iron spheres don't hit your students if we happen to accidentally build a rail gun. It doesn't usually happen, but you can't be too careful."

     The two locals ran out of the room, while Gil and Tarvek hauled an armful of books each into the classroom itself, leaving one there for her to carry. Before she knew it, the three of them were standing in front of a veritable amphitheater filled with wide-eyed undergraduates who had probably never seen a spark before. They were all tucked neatly into their desks (which didn't offer many options for running from an explosion), ready to take notes. Only a handful scattered throughout the predictable seats -- front row, the sides of a couple middle-ish rows, and one or two in the very back -- looked like they were prepared to be bored. No matter where you went, no matter who you were or what you'd done, there was always some student (probably of middling intelligence) who thought he or she was smarter than you.

     As the class bell rang, the Dean and Professor Feynstrom ran in, red-faced, and dropped a wheel-barrow full of the parts Agatha had demanded. She'd been right about them being excellent minion material. Running and hauling that fast were things only truly excellent minions could do (when ordered by a spark).

     "Students!" Professor Feynstrom said. "Please give a warm Brilliankromb welcome to our guests, all the way from Mechanicsburg and Castle Wulfenbach... Visiting Professors Heterodyne, Wulfenbach, and Sturmvoraus."

     The students did clap. Agatha gave them that much. But either Brilliankromb welcomes weren't that warm to begin with, or these students didn't expect much of them. Probably the latter. Agatha thought she could hear some of them muttering about whether they might be actors, like some professional van Rijn impersonator who apparently showed up last year, and at least one person was decidedly unimpressed by anyone using the name "Sturmvoraus".

     Well, no time to worry about that. Gil had finished the schematic the two of them would be working from, which meant she and he had some building to do! She started humming, and coiling wires through a grid of chair legs while Feynstrom cried in the corner and Gil hoisted one magnetic plate so he could hang it from the ceiling.

     "So," Tarvek started. "The Three-Body Problem. I'm sure you all know it's unsolved in the general case, but who wants to lay out _why_ it's unsolved? Yes, you, the ah... the one in the brown hat! Twenty words or less. Be as clear and complete as humanly possible."

     Agatha finished weaving her wire while Tarvek grilled the students to a mildly frightened medium rare. Gil's static sphere only left a few scorch marks on the ceiling (really, what was a university ceiling without a few scorch marks that let students say, "And that's when So-and-so did this ridiculous thing..."), and then it was just a matter of levitating the whole thing, sucking the atmosphere out of the static enclosure so they'd have a perfect frictionless vacuum, and angling their insertion ramps for the iron spheres. They couldn't be off my a millimeter, of course, or they'd end up with that rail gun, but that's what the shatter-proof shields were for!

     And also, they had excellent aim.

     Gil did anyway. She preferred more of an area effect death ray, to be perfectly honest. Things that only took out one enemy usually weren't too useful around Castle Heterodyne.

     Tarvek wrote the last of a string of case points on the board. "Very good. Now, are there any questions before we begin a practical demonstration of predictable and unpredictable models? No?" The entire audience was spellbound, shaking their heads in unison. They looked like they'd had five epiphanies all at once, and might finally have understood the problem the class was about. Lucky for them, Tarvek hated being wrong, so it wasn't misinformation. "Excellent. Take it away, Agatha, Gil."

     "Thanks, Tarvek," she said, and knew immediately that she shouldn't have.

     Before she could start discussing the machine they'd built, the Sturmvoraus expert in the back row jumped out of his seat. "You're _Tarvek_ Sturmvoraus?! The _actual_ heir to the Storm King?!"

     "Why, yes, I am," Tarvek answered. He was preening so much, he probably couldn't see past the end of his nose.

     She and Gil shouted, "Tarvek!" in chorus, miming their heads being cut off.

     "Oh crap," their partner in science answered, then told the kid, "Come with us when this class is over. You've just been approved for a transfer to Mechanicsburg University, which you should really take before my cousin Berenice kills you. Now, who wants to look at the principles of the Three-Body Problem in action?! You, kid, get behind the shield with Agatha and Gil. And Professor Feynstrom, you may want to tell the Dean to fortify the exterior doors of the University."

     "Why?" the gray haired man asked.

     The smoke alarms going off all around the school answered Agatha's questions about the response times of this particular Sturmvoraus. "Nevermind," she told the Professor. "Too late. Students, remain in your seats, and stay very still! The people who are about to try to kill us have no interest in you. The safest thing to do is stay out of their way! Now, we promised you a demonstration, and that's exactly what you're going to get..."

     "Did she say someone was going to kill them?" several of the students murmured in a general buzz, along with others confirming that the word "kill" had definitely been used.

     "Relax!" called Tarvek's fanboy as he ran down the aisle. "That's how you can tell they're real sparks, not just actors!"

     All together, Gil, Agatha, and Tarvek shouted to the class, "Whatever you do, _do not relax_!"


	3. Chapter 3

     Just as Gil fired the last of the iron spheres out of their contraption at the unit of Smoke Knights (any electromagnetic vacuum sphere was really simple to turn into a rail gun when you were _trying_ ), the four of them used the pandemonium to slip through the hole Tarvek had made in the floor. They'd be home free, as long as Agatha could patch-weld the floor back into place fast enough.

     "This has to be the best day of my life," their new minion whispered. "Lord Sturmvoraus, sir, will you sign my copy of--"

     Tarvek clapped his hand over the kid's mouth, or at least that was what it sounded like over the sound of her blowtorch. "Yes, absolutely, provided your parents or legal guardians can ship them to Mechanicsburg, because we don't have time to stop for any personal effects. Agatha, will that hold?"

     "As sure as Castle Heterodyne eats crocodiles for breakfast."

     "I'm going to assume that's a yes," Gil said, checking both directions of the tunnel for some sign of which way was out. "Now let's make like a quantum particle and be somewhere else. I'm pretty sure we want to go left to get out."

     They all started running. Worst case scenario, they got lost, and had to blast a hole through the subterranean tunnels to escape, and it was already clear she'd have to send a fairly large donation to Brilliankromb University to offset the damage their little lecture had done. Maybe Gil was right that they could make a fortune by giving tours of the damaged halls, maybe not, but it was still only polite to support centers of higher learning.

     Speaking of which, it was only a matter of time before the student they'd picked up started in on the difficult questions. "So, Lady Heterodyne," he asked. "What kind of majors do you offer at Mechanicsburg University? Do you have a good higher mathematics program, or is it mostly on the physical sciences? Will I be able to transfer my credits from my first year? And I hope there are dormitories, of course. Do you have single rooms, or will I be moving in with a roommate? Oooh, how about meal plans? I'm sorry for all these questions, but I can't believe I missed reading up on Mechanicsburg U when I was doing my applications! Working with real sparks has always been a dream of mine!"

     Gil picked up the pace to pull up on her left. "I have to admit to having some questions, too. When did you found a school? And where on earth are you hiding it? I wasn't away on the airship that long, and my spies haven't reported any large influxes of student-types to the city."

     Because of course he had spies. He probably thought she'd assumed that. Honestly, she would've assumed it if she'd thought about it for two seconds, but she didn't have two seconds because they were running for their lives. Again.

     "Well, I'm not surprised your spies haven't seen anything. Tarvek here decided to offer this young man a transfer to an institution of higher learning that doesn't actually exist."

     "How does Mechanicsburg not have a university?!" Tarvek gasped. "It's home to one third of the brightest minds of our generation! Specifically you!"

     "It doesn't have one _yet_ ," she assured him. "But the world is full of unemployed academics, and until we get a handful of them and some students for them to teach, this young man... What's your name?"

     "Gregory, ma'am!"

     "Thank you. Until then, Gregory is going to have a work-study internship. Gregory, your first job is not to die."

     "Yes, ma'am! About how many credits would you say--"

     The three of them heard the whistle of a knife flying through the air, amplified by the tile all along the tunnels, and jumped out of the way -- pulling Gregory with them.

     "Gregory," Tarvek said, and the boy went rapt when his hero said his name, "... you will get no credits whatsoever if you die. Now, you know these tunnels better than any of us, I assume."

     "Well, sure..."

     Gil fired his makeshift laser pistol at whoever was throwing knives. "Can you tell us if we're past the outside of the University walls?"

     "Oh yeah, when we passed the--"

     "Perfect," Agatha and her two beaux said together. They started firing everything they had at the ceiling, knocking enough dust and dirt loose that Gregory deflecting the rocks as he was told (solid minion potential there) caught all of the knives coming at them.

     "This isn't going fast enough!" Gil yelled. "They're almost on us."

     Tarvek took a deep breath while Agatha looked for more structural things she could hit with her blowtorch. "Gil. I want you to know I say this out of love, but I've taken control of fifteen counties in Eastern Europa. I just want you to know that."

     "This is not the time!" Gil shouted back.

     Agatha could've sworn she heard Tarvek mutter, "Damn, the adrenaline must be overriding his allergies," before he put on his full-blown monologuing villain voice. It'd been entire _months_ since she'd heard him whip that out! "Gilgamesh Wulfenbach! My cousin may only rule this town..."

     She saw Gil's nose start to twitch. Time to whip out the safety goggles. Tarvek had his own if he wanted to wear them, so she threw her extra pair to their new minion, Gregory.

     "...But you are hardly the Lord of the World that you think you are, _Baron-Presumptive_! You may think you've won, but the Storm King will always triumph! Indeed, my dominion is well on its way to being totally secure! In a thousand cities across the continent, my operatives are already in place, doing my will in the shadows! You will never take Europa from my grasp!"

     Gil was pinching his nose now, clearly trying to fight the histamine build-up while continuing to fire alternately at the ceiling and their oncoming attackers. Through the spray of rubble, Agatha mimed a series of circles and symbols that neither of those two competitive nincompoops would ever in their lives fail to recognize. Tarvek nodded.

     "And never forget! It was I, _Tarvek Sturmvoraus_ , who took first place in our one and only undergraduate science fair!"

     The thunderous sneeze Gil let out did exactly what they'd needed: it collapsed the tunnel around the points they'd weakened, blocking the Smoke Knights on their tail right before they'd closed in for the kill and opening up a hole in the ground above them where they could climb out to freedom. As luck would have it, the hole even opened up next to the road heading North towards Mechanicsburg!

     Gil slapped Tarvek on the back. "I understand why you did it, but if you ever mention that science fair again, I will personally reconfigure your electric blanket so that it has the personality of a rabid hamster."

     "Understood, Gil. Understood."

     "And now, running!" Agatha reminded them as she pulled Gregory out of the hole in the ground. "Or we will all be too full of holes to appreciate rabid hamster blankets!"

     "I think I see a traveling circus turning the corner up ahead! If we sprint we may be able to catch up to them!" Tarvek noted.

     No more needed to be said. The usefulness of a good traveling circus was something no spark ever underestimated. She was a little worried that their new minion wouldn't be able to keep up, given the fact that his previous university's educational program was clearly very sedentary and thus not the best preparation for the life of a spark on the road, but at least he was still grinning.

     "Oh boy!" Gregory gasped, a little winded while the circus masters pulled them up onto the back cart. "It's just like all the plays! I'm on a Heterodyne adventure!"

     "Yes, you are, kid," Gil answered.

     And Tarvek reminded him, "But you have to remember what Agatha told you."

     "Don't die!" Gregory cheered. "... or I won't get any college credit!"

     Good enough, she supposed. She'd assign him a paper or something so she could see what he knew once they got to Mechanicsburg, but in the meantime Agatha shared a smile with her Tarvek and her Gil, and she prepared to take a well-earned nap.


End file.
